


a difference in texture

by adreamaloud, daneorange (adreamaloud)



Category: Skins (UK) RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-15
Updated: 2009-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-18 18:21:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/adreamaloud, https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/daneorange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Does it come in threes?</p>
            </blockquote>





	a difference in texture

_Does it come in cages? Does it come in threes?_ –broken social scene, “superconnected”

Kat comes to her with the revelation like this: She goes, “I’m kissing Loveless!” trying to be casual and not giddy, though it shows anyway, and Meg tries to come around as soon as she can. Things like this happen all the time, she tells herself. Or at least with Kat, it does.

Kat gets to kiss all the pretty girls all the time, and Meg tries not to mind that she does.

*

Meg remembers, on the first day of audition they were allowed to choose. Of course, afterwards, she tells herself, she got the part she wanted more, though deep inside she’s thinking about how Kat could do this better and how Kat is infinitely braver.

“I’d take the one that kisses the girl,” Kat says, smiling sweetly at the man holding the pages. Meg had almost reached over, only to pull into herself, again.

*

Kat gets on with Lily first thing on the first day the cast meets; Meg overhears a bit about drama class. Lily’s obviously a bit surprised Kat remembers her, overwhelmed at the attention, what with the way she looks down, avoiding Kat’s eyes, fidgeting. Meg watches as Kat’s hand strays a bit, light on Lily’s arm. Lily laughs in kind, and then.

Meg looks away; she knows Kat too well – she’s charming in ways Meg isn’t.

*

She takes up smoking a few days after Kat does. Sometimes, they smoke together, just the two of them, though they barely speak while at it. People think twins talk all the time, or if they see them quiet, they assume they’re talking in their minds. Sometimes, it’s a lot like that, but then there are moments when Meg feels so disconnected.

On that day Kat kisses Lily the first time, Meg’s right there, watching. It is eerily quiet for a room with nearly fifty people, save for the music, and Meg is holding her breath. Kat as Emily leans in and kisses Lily as Naomi and Meg, standing there as just herself, could not pretend. She tries to look away when Kat darts her tongue out and tastes Lily’s lips; here she goes again, Meg tells herself, waiting for the moment to end.

When it does, somebody calls out for a break, and Meg heads outside in the silly pyjamas and takes out a fag, huddled tightly against the wall, an effort to be not found. The crowd disperses accordingly. At the corner of her eye, she sees Lily heading over her way, and she adjusts herself against the wall, self-conscious.

“Are you all right,” Lily’s saying, motioning for Meg’s lighter.

Meg blows a wisp of smoke to her other side. “Sure, why?”

Lily hangs her head, looking unsure, as she takes a drag in. “I don’t know, color me paranoid or whatever,” she’s saying after. “It’s just that, you left immediately after, so maybe.”

“Maybe?” Meg raises a brow even, smiling. “I wasn’t Katie back there, you know. I could handle girls kissing.”

Here, Lily laughs. It leaves Meg feeling something she couldn’t quite place.

*

Some days after shoots when Kat and Meg are in a room at home together, Kat says things that make Meg suspect something more is going on between Lily and her – something more, something else, because if Kat’s not talking about the grand time she had just sitting across Lily having coffee outside Skins hours, she’s talking about how the whole Naomi-Emily thing just feels really right.

“Plus, she’s a great kisser,” Kat adds, toying with her lollipop, one afternoon they’re together. Dusk is falling and they’re sitting in the park, smoking with one hand and finishing a lollipop with the other.

Meg rolls her eyes and says, “I really don’t need to hear any more of that.”

“Come on,” Kat nudges her, playfully. “Don’t go Katie on me now, Meg.”

Meg laughs along; sometimes, she likes the new Kat she has with her now, the one that she has grown closer to while filming Skins. Though for the most part it has been insane, being this close, Meg finds it curious, actually, the fact that they could get closer still, despite having lived alongside each other practically forever. “So you like kissing Lily, then?”

“Who wouldn’t like to kiss Lily, Meg?”

“I wouldn’t,” Meg says, automatically, the words out before she could even process them. She regrets the speed immediately. “I mean, not that I have to,” she’s qualifying, “granted that Lily and Katie never really, you know...” And suddenly Meg is stopping herself, somewhat self-conscious. She finishes the thought with, “They don’t really have to.”

Kat looks at her, finishing her cigarette and flicking it away to the side, her eyes saying something like, _I know there is something wrong with this conversation, only I don’t know exactly what._

*

Sometimes, when Meg comes back to the room she and Kat share backstage on the set, she finds Lily sitting with Kat; they’re so close that their knees are touching. Always, Lily is laughing at something, and Kat is gesturing with a hand.

When Meg comes in, Lily looks up, still in the aftermath of a giggle, says something like, “Oh,” and then stands up, pushing herself off the couch with a hand on Kat’s knee. “So I’ll see you two later?” says Lily.

Kat says, “Sure thing,” after her, casually, fixing her hair as she sits back on the couch.

When Lily passes by Meg at the door, she stops briefly, as if to say something. Meg opens her mouth to say something herself, but then, settles with a smile, a light nod. Lily laughs lightly in return, and then goes on ahead out.

“Seriously, Meg,” says Kat, as Meg shuts the door behind her. “What is going on between the two of you?”

Meg’s eyes grow wide. “What in the world,” she says, approaching Kat on the couch. “Nothing. Nothing is going on,” she says as she sits down.

Kat just shrugs, the way she does when she is unconvinced, says, “Well, if you say so,” instead.

*

Kat gets hypothermia after being pushed into the lake, and Meg finds herself sitting with Lily outside the hospital, waiting. Lily’s still wrapped in heavy towels herself, and Meg passes a lit cigarette her way.

“Thanks,” Lily’s saying. And then, “I’m really sorry I pushed her in, you know.”

Meg lights up herself, shakes her head. “Well, if the script says so, right? It was supposed to have been even longer, you know,” she exhales to the side. “No need to be sorry now, yeah?”

Lily smiles at that, takes in a long drag. “Thanks,” she says after. There’s a long silence between, one that almost makes Meg uncomfortable. There’s something about being alone with Lily that just seems wrong, at least on the surface; Meg thinks it’s the fact that she looks like Kat but isn’t her, and that this makes her feel like she’s intruding into *something*.

“Look—”

“Are you—”

They stare at each other and the coincidence between them and Lily breaks out in a laugh, a trace of shiver toward the end. “No, sorry, you were saying?” she says.

Meg shakes her head. “No, I was just...” She trails off. “Nothing. It was nothing.”

After a while, Lily finishes her cigarette and crushes it against the pavement beneath them; still no word from the people who had brought Kat in for the check-up. “I hope Kat’s okay,” she says, looking at Meg, who nods, smiling with tightly pursed lips. “Look, Meg, are you really okay with the whole me and Kat thing?”

Meg’s mouth is dry at the question. She says, “Yes,” and it comes out almost hoarse, almost like Kat’s. She clears her throat. “I mean, of course, why not? It’s acting.”

Lily looks away at that, in a way that makes Meg’s mind fill with all sorts of meaning. “Right?” Meg repeats, and when Lily looks down, Meg pulls out another cigarette from her pack and lights up.

*

They film the scene by the lake, the one Kat’s been nervous about all day, and Kat’s never really been nervous, insofar as Meg is concerned. When it starts, everybody is quiet, including Meg; she stands there, arms crossed tightly in front of herself, wondering about what it was Lily was so unsure about a while back, at the hospital.

Though she knows exactly where Lily as Naomi leans in to kiss Kat as Emily, the moment she does, Meg is still surprised. She notes how Kat is still positively shivering, worries a bit that they have to undress.

Meg looks away when they do, the way she had when it was Lily’s turn to undress in the scene earlier. Meg doesn’t know why, doesn’t bother to explain to herself why, she just does.

When the scene is done, there is applause. Meg catches the two of them hugging and helping each other put their clothes back on. At some point, Lily looks at her. Meg does her best to smile back, but then she finds herself looking away right after.

*

At home that night, Meg tries to sort it out with Kat. “Great job at the lake,” she saying as a segue. And then, “I talked to Lily at the hospital.”

Kat is walking around the room, getting undressed, getting re-dressed. “Yeah?” she says back, inattentive.

Meg thinks about letting it go, for a moment. So what if Kat and Lily were in something, all right? Maybe it’s method acting, or something. She worries for a minute and then, “It’s only acting, isn’t it?”

Kat puts a shirt on before saying, “What’s only acting?”

“You and Loveless, it’s acting.”

Kat pauses a while, her eyes finding a point on the wall behind Meg. And then she says, “Yeah,” nodding even, “Of course it is.” But she doesn’t catch Meg’s eye while at it, not at all.

*

On the day they shoot Katie and Emily’s episode, Meg runs into Lily early. She gives Meg this sort of half wink as a good morning with that lopsided smile.

“Hey yourself,” Meg says, smiling.

“For some reason, I think this is going to be fun,” Lily’s saying.

Meg ruffles her script for effect. “Tell me about it.”

“Well,” Lily pretends to read through hers. “Sadly, no more rocks for you,” she says, looking over at Meg with mock disappointment. The look makes Meg laugh; it’s like nothing she remembers. “But we do get to rough it up a little here, yeah?”

Meg finds herself nodding, smiling as her fingers run to the page. “I even get to slap you somewhere, I remember...”

At which point Lily touches Meg’s cheek, briefly. “Well, remember to go gentle on me later, yeah?” she says before leaving; Meg stares after her until she disappears into a faraway room, wordless, her cheek still stinging several minutes hence.

*

Despite preparations and practice, everything is real when the camera rolls; Emily hits Doug anyway, even when Kat isn’t really supposed to hit Giles, and Meg feels like she hit Lily a bit too harshly, but then, Katie wouldn’t hold back on Naomi, would she?

Afterwards, Meg checks on Lily, hoping to apologize; she finds her in her room, but Kat is there first. Meg overhears them laughing through the half-open door.

When they’re not laughing anymore, Meg decides to peek in, and that is when she sees Kat and Lily kissing against Lily’s dresser, Lily’s fingers sifting through Kat’s hair.

Against better judgment, Meg pulls the door closed, walking away briskly. Of course she isn’t crying; at least this is what she tells herself.

*

Sometime after, granted that the three of them are free, Meg catches the phone call from Lily where she says the three of them should go out “in celebration.” Kat’s in the bathroom and taking a miserably long time at Meg’s expense, so when Meg sees Lily’s name flashing on the caller ID, she picks it up anyway.

“Sorry, this is Meg, Kat’s in the bathroom,” she says by way of opening.

Lily laughs lightly. “We should go out, like, later,” she’s saying. “I mean, the three of us.”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know. Shop? Coffee? Later in the night, we could go dancing. If you like.”

“And watch Kat get totally hung over? No thanks,” Meg’s saying, but she’s laughing anyway, and on the other line, Lily’s laughing as well. Meg’s thinking about how nice it is, if she and Lily were the sort of friends who would have each other on speed dial, if only because Lily were so pleasant, and if only Lily weren’t fucking Kat in the first place.

“Come on,” Lily’s saying on the other line, “It would be fun, and besides, you know I can’t handle Kat alone when she gets smashed, yeah?”

Meg sighs. Of course, the bottom line is always this. “Oh fuck it, okay then,” Meg’s saying, and at that she hears the bathroom door open from afar. “Kat’s done, I have to go. You have to call her again, okay?” She puts the phone down without so much of a goodbye, puts it back where she last got it and then heads to the newly vacated bathroom.

When Meg gets back out, Kat’s saying, “Oh, Lily called, she wants to go out. Come with?”

Meg tries to act surprised. “Including me?”

“Don’t act so surprised. I mean,” Kat’s saying as she dries her hair. “You and Lily, you seem to get along just right.”

To which Megan just says, “Yeah,” And then, “Of course.”

Throughout the day, Meg tries not to read too much into their clandestine gestures – the way hands are held slightly, the way with which Kat pokes Lily’s side, the way Lily laughs at everything Kat says, the way Kat just looks at Lily, taking her time, taking her in.

When Kat leaves Meg and Lily briefly to buy the group cigarettes, Meg tries not to say anything about it, until Lily brings it up herself.

“Your sister,” she begins, fiddling with something at the bottom of her shirt, looking down. “I mean, I just want to say...”

Meg cuts in, saying, “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

Lily looks up, holding Meg’s eyes. “Does it matter to you?”

“It doesn’t bother me at all, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“No,” Lily says, pushing her hair off her eyes. “I’m asking if it matters to you.”

Meg thinks about it briefly, before saying, “She’s my sister, of course it does.” And then, “But are you?”

At which point, Kat comes back, and Lily laughs lightly to herself. Meg thinks they’re still stuck filming some sort of contrived drama. “What? Been up to any fun while I’m gone?” Kat’s asking.

Lily looks over at Meg. “Fun? Hardly,” she says, winking Meg’s way. “Couldn’t have too much fun sans cigarettes, really,” she adds.

“’Course,” is all Meg says, reaching over for a fag herself. She sits back, silent throughout.

*

That night, they join Jack and the rest in hitting a club; Meg almost bails, exhausted with the effort to keep herself from combusting internally, but then Kaya says she should stay and gets really persistent about it that it almost hurts not to give in.

With the crowd a bit larger, Meg breathes more easily now; being with Kat too often gives her this suffocating feeling that she is almost ashamed about; and then, there’s Lily.

 _And then there’s Lily_ – she repeats the fragment to herself, and then promptly, consciously, decides to dissolve it.

As expected, Kat’s in the middle of it all, dancing with a bottle in her left and a cigarette on her right, and after a while, Meg finds it in herself to relax, though she attributes it more to alcohol than anything.

When Kaya plops beside Meg on the couch, she asks about Lily.

“I don’t know,” Meg’s screaming over the music; she has to. “Maybe she’s outside, smoking?” And then, “Besides, why are you asking me?”

Kaya smiles in the dark. Even in person and without Effy’s make-up, she could be just as mysterious. “Nothing,” she says, smiling slyly. “I just thought you’d know.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean,” Meg’s saying, letting the alcohol take over.

Kaya laughs, “Nothing really,” she’s saying, sipping from her drink between. “Jesus, Meg, you’re drunk.” And just then, Kaya’s eyes shift to look at something over Meg’s shoulder. “Ah, look who’s here.”

When Meg turns, she catches Lily’s gesture – she’s got two fingers to her lips, mimicking a cigarette held. “So,” Meg says to Kaya before getting up. Kaya only smiles back in return.

*

Lily meets her outside; Meg had expected there would be more, but then it does look like Lily had invited her exclusively. They laugh as they offer their packs to each other at the same time.

“We’re always doing that, aren’t we,” Lily’s saying, lighting up, taking a drag. Meg only nods as she lights up herself. “Did you see Kat in there?” Lily continues.

“Yeah,” Meg says, shaking her head. “Nothing out of the ordinary, really, though in a bit I reckon we’d have to take her home.”

They stand there smoking in silence for a bit. Meg thinks maybe they’re both afraid of the direction the conversation could take; she looks at Lily, thinking maybe she could read through her, but then she doesn’t get far with Lily looking constantly away.

“You never answered my question,” Meg asks after a good while.

“What question?” asks Lily. By then she’s finished her cigarette; she drops it on the pavement and stubs it out with her heel.

“The one about Kat.”

Lily looks at her, finally; now Meg can see clearly how she does not know what to say. Lily’s biting on her lower lip. “I’m not sure.”

Meg sighs, thinking, How did I not see this coming? She drops her cigarette herself, then picks Lily up gently by the wrist. “Come on, Kat’s probably off her tits now,” she just says, dragging Lily back into the club.

*

Later that night, Meg finds herself holding up half of Kat, as Lily holds onto the other; soon they’re standing at the door, and Meg’s rummaging for her keys while Lily holds onto Kat tighter.

Throughout the ride home, Meg feels Lily’s intermittent stares between Kat and her and then back to Kat again. Meg looks out the window all the while, tries not to intrude, because the way Lily is smoothing Kat’s hair is loud and clear and unmistakable.

*

It’s an effort to get Kat into bed; she’s practically a dead girl with a slight limp, at best. When they finally succeed, Meg starts by taking of Kat’s shoes, and Lily takes her cue off Meg’s look and starts unbuttoning Kat’s cardigan.

They undress her in silence, avoiding each other’s eyes. All throughout Meg feels like something’s exploding and contracting inside her chest.

*

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay until daybreak?” Meg’s asking Lily, as she walks her to the curb after. “It’s a rare spot for taxis, you know.”

Lily pushes her hand into her pocket. “I’ll be fine, Meg,” she’s saying. “Thank you.”

It must be way past midnight and closer to dawn, but Meg feels so *awake*. She manages to fish out one of her last few cigarettes from a back pocket; it’s now unbelievably worn, but still serviceable. “One last cigarette then,” she offers to Lily, and for her part, Lily just nods. They pass the cigarette to and fro in silence.

Lily takes the last drag. “Come on, it’s yours,” Meg says, pushing Lily’s hand lightly away. Lily holds on, bringing Meg’s hand to her face, and Meg is unable to do anything else other than stare.

“Sometimes,” Lily begins, “I can’t help but think, what if it was you and not her, you know?”

Of course, Meg kisses her; not like there’s anything else left to do anyway after a thing like that. “Say something,” Meg says at parting, and Lily snickers lightly at the reference.

“It’s different,” Lily’s saying, licking her lips. “You’re different. Something about texture, I don’t know.” At which point they share a laugh. “Who says a thing like that after, yeah?”

“What are you on, Loveless?” asks Meg, smiling, on the verge of leaning back in.

“I don’t know. It’s purely nicotine, what about you?”

Meg shakes her head, then closes the gap between in response.

*

Of course, it never happens again; Meg knows a thing or two about making mistakes you could only correct by avoidance. When the gang goes out in the period between, Lily hangs out with Kat often, says little to Meg, if at all; and Meg, of course, Meg understands one-time things that happen under the influence of even the mildest of substances.

So she steps back, as she should, watching. Every so often, she worries about Lily breaking Kat’s heart, or something similarly tragic in whatever permutation, but then again, as Meg fully understands, no one’s got a hold on a thing like that – not even her, not even if she tries very hard.#  


**Author's Note:**

> Title from Broken Social Scene, “Superconnected.” Here’s where I say none of these is true, that a lot of liberty has been taken with everything, and that I adore you, please don’t smite me.


End file.
